Recessed Lighting Layout Kitchen Ideas

Recessed lighting for your kitchen will help you illuminate tasks, highlighting specific features in your kitchen and general lighting. There is probably more need for light in your kitchen than in other parts of your home. However, the type of light you choose affects the mood and your efficacy in the kitchen. Installing recessed lights in your kitchen requires some planning, which can be seen in a layout.

The best-recessed lighting layout for your kitchen respects the position of existing light fixtures and ensures that every part of your kitchen is illuminated. That is, your countertops, general work area, kitchen cabinets, island bars, and stovetops will be washed in the appropriate lighting.

This piece will help you develop the best-recessed lighting layout for your kitchen and provide some recessed lighting layout ideas from which you can draw inspiration.

How to Draw a Recessed Lighting Layout for Your Kitchen

A recessed lighting layout is a drawing that points out the areas where your recessed lighting fixtures will be positioned in a particular room. It does not explain the types of light fixtures you’ll, but it gives an individual with some knowledge about lighting an idea of what the appropriate lighting types will be.

To draw a recessed lighting layout for your kitchen, there are certain things you should know. They include:

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What Parts of Your Kitchen Should Have Recessed Lights?

Recessed lights can provide task lighting, accent lighting, mood lighting, and ambient lighting. All of these types of lighting are necessary for your kitchen if you are to get the whole experience. Task lightings can be installed over the countertops, the general work area, and the stovetops. Ambient lighting will provide general illumination in the kitchen open floor area. Finally, mood lighting highlights the kitchen cabinets, special spaces, and island bars.

What Types of Lights Should Each Part Have?

As every part of your kitchen can use different types of recess lighting, you need the right types of recessed light fixtures to provide the types of lighting you desire. For instance, the task lighting you need for your work area may employ pot lights that use IC housings, providing insulation above the ceiling. In addition, you can provide ambient lighting with pendant lights, and mood lighting can be achieved by installing lights with dimmer switches.

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How Far Apart Should the Lights Be?

Arguably, the most important part of lighting layout is the distance between light fixtures and how they affect the general lighting of a room. For your kitchen, your layout will be affected by the height of your ceiling, the area of your ceiling, and the position of certain kitchen furniture, such as wall cabinets.

You should have one recessed light fixture at every 4 to 6 square feet of ceiling space as a general rule of thumb. Also, recessed downlights should be about 12 to 18 inches from any cabinet and 12 inches from each other.

Another common kitchen recessed lighting layout is to focus light on the countertop edges and the sinks to avoid shadows when an individual is working at the counter. Follow the indirect lighting guide to improve the appearance.

To draw your Kitchen recessed lighting layout, having known the above, follow these tips:

• Make a rough sketch of where you want your lights to be in relation to your kitchen furniture.
• Transfer your drawing to a graph to help you decide light spacing to scale.
• Begin with the focal point in your Kitchen, the countertops, preferably.
• Consider your ceiling height as it influences how much bright light you need.
• Don’t neglect decorative lighting.

5 Ideas on Recessed Lighting Layout for Kitchen

These ideas are meant to make drawing a layout or getting layout ideas for your kitchen easier. But, of course, you can tweak some details to your taste.

Layout 1

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This kitchen ensures enough illumination, day and night, using white paint. The color of the wall and furniture affects the room’s brightness; so, you may want to paint your kitchen with bright colors. The white paint reflects enough natural light through the glass doors. It also reflects ambient light from the ceiling.

The relatively low ceiling of the kitchen takes three recessed light fixtures and one row of light to provide ambient light. Another row of pot lights provides lighting for the countertop. There are also task lights on display over the stovetops.

Although this layout does not show mood lighting, you can include a dimmer switch to reduce the illumination intensity depending on the mood you’re shooting for.

Layout 2

Not every kitchen is built to access the same immense amount of natural light. However, all kitchens should have adequate lighting to make the environment worth your stay. Task lighting is provided above the stovetop and the general work area in this kitchen. The task light lets you know what you’re doing at the stove and the sink. Note that the task light above the sink and countertop is provided by three pendant lights, while the stovetop uses a recessed light.

In the ceiling, two rows of three recessed pot lights provide ambient lighting, with their illumination hitting the edges of the countertop and preventing shadows while working on the countertop. In addition, there is more lighting in the middle of the room as the distance between the middle pendant light and one of the ceiling recessed light is less than 10 inches.

You can install dimmer switches for the pendant lights and reduce their glare when you’re not using the sink and countertop.

Layout 3

Notice the brightly colored wall cabinets and their contrast with some of the base cabinets? The white wall cabinets and white high ceiling help to reflect more light than the kitchen floor. The recessed lights set in the ceiling are safe from the wall cabinets, discouraging shadows at any corner in the kitchen, especially with only one window and little natural light.

Task lightings above the countertop, making it the focal point of the kitchen, and the stove area, emphasize these parts of the kitchen as the work areas. The ambient lighting in the ceiling, spaced about 13 inches from the wall cabinets, leaves the center of the kitchen for the pendant lights that serve task lighting to the sink.

The recessed lights are arranged around the ceiling in a single rectangle, with one extra recessed light providing extra light at the window. A dimmer switch for this type of lighting layout may have to affect all the light fixtures, as you won’t want a bright light to reflect off the white cabinets, distorting the mood lighting you’re aiming for.

Layout 4

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Small kitchens usually have small floor space, as base cabinets will take more space. However, fewer lights may be needed because limited light fixtures will provide adequate illumination for the entire kitchen area. Therefore, installing pendant task lights in bigger kitchens with high ceilings may be challenging.

Task lighting in this kitchen is installed under the wall cabinet, showering the countertop with enough illumination for food preparation. The stovetop does not have any task light, but there can be no shadow to disturb cooking as the recessed light in the ceiling provides enough illumination.

The arrangement of the recessed lighting in the relatively low ceiling is about 15 inches from each other, and the light bulbs have an excellent lumen rating. In addition, the bright colors of the countertop and ceiling ensure the rays of light are well reflected around the kitchen.

Layout 5

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The best way to illuminate a small kitchen with a low ceiling is to use recess lighting with a high lumen rating and place them in strategic places in the room. You don’t have much space to cover, and you can save cost on purchasing too many light fixtures as you only need a few rows of lights.

Start your recessed light installation from the workspace, such as the countertop. Ensure that the light bulbs used in this work area are bright enough to illuminate some parts of the floor space. Also, their arrangement does not have to align with the other lights. For example, in the center of the room, where the ceiling is recessed, space your recessed lights about 15 inches from each other. Use bright bulbs to have some illumination bright enough to help you see your work on the stove.

As the kitchen is small, there may be no need for mood lighting; therefore, you need dimmer switches.

Final Thoughts

The kitchen’s recessed lighting layout follows the same basic principle as the recessed lighting layout for other home parts. However, you need to pay cognizance to the distance of your recessed lighting fixtures from the wall cabinets and how they provide lighting to the kitchen’s work areas and floor space.